


Truly, Deeply

by happygolovely



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Chemicals, Confessions, Conflict Resolution, Friendship/Love, Hopeful Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Tenderness, Truth Serum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-05 22:04:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13397190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happygolovely/pseuds/happygolovely
Summary: "I've taken the liberty of adding a little something to the drinks."Oswald chokes. "Remind me to join the temperance league."





	Truly, Deeply

Oswald loses his head and his Ed at roughly the same time. Sends teams scouring the streets, hoping to regain what little remains of his sanity. About this tall, green, you can’t miss him.

Except Oswald does miss him. Misses him very much in fact.

He turns up at the lounge on a Thursday night, decked out in full Riddler regalia. Mask in place. One of many.

Moves across the room, the parting of the seas. He only has eyes for Oswald. Takes a seat next to him on the balcony and kicks his legs up over the table. Settles in as if he never left.

Orders a single martini with a green olive, lavishes it with his attention. Takes the olive off the toothpick and pops it into his mouth. Lets out an obscene sound.

“That’s quite enough of that. This is a respectable establishment.” Oswald whispers furiously as he pulls him up out of the chair, holding firmly to his arm as he leads him into the backroom. Whispers follow them out. 

Slams the door of his office. Let them talk. He has more urgent matters to attend to.

Fixes himself a stiff drink. He’s going to need it. Sits behind his desk and waits for something resembling an explanation.

Riddled with riddles no doubt but better than nothing.

Ed looks at him innocently and twiddles his thumbs. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth but ice would.

Oswald cracks as he always does.

“What do you want?”

“What I want the poor have, the rich nee-

“Enough foreplay, wordplay whatever you want to call it. Tell me what this is.”

Ed reaches into the pocket of his coat and pulls out a thin green, glass bottle. Sets it on the desk. A little label on it.

Chemical X

Next to it he sets an identical bottle.

Chemical IV

“Pick your poison.” He says delightedly.

Oswald looks at him for a long time. Takes a swig of his vodka instead.

Ed smiles and nods. “I thought that’s what you might say. I’ve taken the liberty of adding a little something to all the drinks in your office.”

He chokes. “Remind me to join the temperance league.”

“I give it a week.”

He shrugs. It's a fair point. Pours himself another glass.

Whatever Ed has chosen is slow acting so might as well.

He raises his glass and toasts him.

“Here’s to you, old friend. Can I offer you a drink?”

Ed declines politely and takes one of the bottles off the table.

“You’ll want to know what I gave you naturally.” He presents the bottle with showman flair, a snake oil salesman.

Mister Nygma’s Miracle Elixir.

“Don’t tell me - its absinthe laced with cocaine and failure.”

Ed shakes his head modestly. “Fraid not.”

“Funny, could have sworn you had a taste for the stuff.”

“I quit the habit. It's nothing deadly not to worry. Not that I would tell you if it was. Actually it's just to make you pliable, more amenable to my proposal.”

Oswald laughs into his drink. As if Ed ever needed chemicals to make him agreeable.

The man could have asked for Gotham itself and he would have given it to him, brick by brick. Torn himself apart in every direction if that’s what it took.

Taken the stars out of the sky and wrapped them around his finger just as surely as Oswald himself was.

That was then. He won’t fall back on old patterns.

“It seems you have me right where you want me. Now are you going to do something about it or what?” He leans back in his chair utterly unimpressed.

Ed rolls up the sleeve of his jacket and shirt and reaches for one of the bottles. Takes the topper out and places a single drop on his wrist. Holds it across the table.

Oswald’s eyes narrow.

“You’ve been to see Ivy.”

“She sends her regards.”

Ed reaches for Oswald’s hand across the table and he lets him take it, completely spellbound.

Ed repeats the process with the bottle and Oswald’s wrist.

“Together on the count of three.”

Three.

Two.

They lift up each others wrists and smell.

A mist, a sweeping rain. Hazy hues and lush green. Everywhere he looks shades of green. He wants to reach out and touch it.

Ed stares at his own hand in fascination. “It appears to be raining on my hand. How interesting.” He swipes his tongue across his thumb. “Sweat. Hallucinatory effects. Impaired cognitive functions. Truth serum of a sort. I imagine you have some questions. So do I.”

He reaches once more into his pocket and pulls out an index card.

“Twenty questions. Rapid fire. Go.”

“Do you regret it? Shooting me, leaving me for dead.”

Ed winces. “Not at the time. It seemed necessary. I regret the escalation of events, regret hurting you. I still maintain that I was in the right of course.”

Oswald rolls his eyes. That stubborn incessant need to prove himself to the last.

“Do you regret it? What happened to her.” Ed says quietly.

“It seemed necessary at the time.” He says sharply. Ed finches. “I shouldn’t have done that to you. I can’t say that I’ll ever be sorry for her sake but for yours. You deserve better than that.”

“I do, don’t I?” It's not intended as a question, the serum takes it as one.

“You deserve everything and more. All you ever want, all you ever need, your every des-” He cuts himself off as best he can, fighting against the compulsion to let his heart bleed dry in front of him.

He’s done that one time too many for this man.

Eyes cool and assessing. “You still love me. After all this time, after everything.”

It's not a question, he doesn’t have to answer that.

They both know the answer never changed. Never will.

“Do you think of me?” Oswald wonders. It seems he does little else these days. His heart painted over in shades of green.

“Incessantly.” Ed glares. “It's incredibly irritating.”

Oswald laughs. “At least I’m good for something.”

“You’re good at a lot of things.” Ed reassures him and then finds himself confused as to why. He still doesn’t understand the effect this man has on him.

Perhaps he never will.

“Why do you love me?” Blinks. Looks at his notecard. He never intended to ask that.

“You can’t be serious. Look at you.” Oswald gestures at him. “You’re incandescent. The brightest, most brilliant, beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Staring directly into an eclipse.”

“It’s superficial then.” Ed doesn’t know why he sounds so disappointed. This should be a relief. If Oswald’s affection is built on physical attraction that’s easy enough to remedy.

He could cut off his own ear and mail it to him, send him pieces of himself till he’s a mangled torn up shadow of a man. Cut up the face he holds so dear till it's unrecognizable. Destroy the essence of the man he loves. He tried it before he could do it a second time.

“It’s anything but. You saved me, healed me, loved me. Kind, clever, and cut from the same cloth as myself.”

“You fell in love with your own reflection, how romantic.”

“You did much the same with that librarian of yours. She was a fantasy fully sprung from your own mind. Who’s the Narcissus here?”

Shakes his head. “I hate myself too much to ever really be a narcissistic. I’m simply too self involved for another word.”

Ed looks at his list of questions. They all seem inadequate to the moment. He tucks it back into his jacket.

“Would you change if you could? Leave Gotham, start another life. Be a better man and all that rot.”

“Gilding the lily. You can’t improve perfection.”  Oswald snorts then turns serious. “We are what we are. There’s no use trying to be otherwise.”

Ed nods. He expected as much from him.

Oswald gathers his courage, as he should have all that time ago.

“Will you ever….will you ever come back to me? It doesn’t have to be like this, living on the periphery of each other. I know we’ll never have what we did before but I won’t ask for anything more than this.” Oswald clutches his drink tightly. “I need to see you.”

“I’m here now. That’s a start.” Ed holds up his hand. “Final round. Last questions. One for each of us.”

There’s really only one thing he needs to know.

“Will you hurt me again? Promise you won’t.” He would stay if he could be assured of that.

“I can’t promise that. Neither can you. It’s not in our nature. All we can do is the best we can, day by day.”

It's not the answer he was looking for. It's better, its real. All this time spent searching for solutions when it was right here all along.

He swallows around a strange feeling in his throat. Words he’s not ready to say.

“Your turn.”

Oswald throws back the rest of his drink. Eyes hardened.

“Am I not good enough for you?” He’s not, he knows that. He’s always known that.

“Perhaps not. I’m certainly not good enough for you.” Oswald starts to protest, he silences him. “No, it's true we both know it. We could do much better objectively speaking.”

“Don’t you dare tell me I could do better. I don’t want better, I want you.”

Ed smiles. A clear morning you can see for miles.

Love isn’t something earned or deserved. Its freely given.

He takes Oswald’s hand and raises it to his lips. Presses a gentle, reverent kiss to the inside of his wrist.

Oswald shivers and soars. A high he has never felt. He remembers the chemicals in their bloodstreams. Pulls back quickly.

A testimony given under duress is inadmissible.

“You can still walk away, I won’t hold you to this.”

He’d do a great many other, terrible things but not this.

“I want you to hold me to it. Stop letting me off so easy.”

“We’ll see if you feel the same come morning. In the meantime, do you need a place to stay? There’s a spare bedroom at the manor.”

Ed coughs. Knows very well that if he spent the night they wouldn't use the spare. Oswald’s better intentions be damned. “That’s very…” Tempting. Irresistible. “kind of you to offer.”

Oswald beams at him. Overjoyed and overwhelmed. Ed nearly keels over on the spot. “I should be heading back. I’ll see you tomorrow if you like.”

“I’d like nothing more." 

Ed tips his hat and leaves the lounge.

Walks out of paradise and back into Gotham.

The city of tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: happygoloony


End file.
